I’m looking for a RW stack or theme for a book/record store or maybe a craft store. A year ago there weren’t any, so I thought I’d check back in and see if anyone has written such an animal.
Ultimately I had to install a Wordpress theme without Rapidweaver. And that’s created another issue for another thread…
Michael: I think you need to give more info about what you’re specifically looking for. I know of zero stacks/themes for book/record/craft stores. But some themes are very flexible so gettting a look you want should not be a problem. For ultimate flexibility there are the non-themes: Foundry and Foundation.
… but my guess is that beyond “style” you have some practical needs also. Could you describe? There may indeed be some stacks that could help you out if we know a wee more.
Michael: Thanks, that’s very helpful.
Realistically there are a few different ways to accomplish what you want. Most of the website is very straightforward. The key is have a way to show a selection of books, clicking, and then seeing the details about that specific book. Even with this there are a variety of ways to achieve this:
So what are some solutions? You can search for Slider stacks. There are quite a few made for RW. My guess, however, is you’ll want something more general.
In terms of themes the most general, open-ended, flexible themes are Foundry and Foundation. They provide a lot of flexiblity in terms of how you design things. There’s no free lunch, however, so there’s a bit of an extra cost in learning how to use them. But both are great.
In terms of selecting items: this can easily be done with some sort of grid stack with links that take you to dedicated pages for a specific project. Within Foundry and Foundation they both have grid stacks that allow you to do this. (I’m more familiar with Foundry which I use a lot, but I know Foundation is also very good). You can also search for general Grid stacks (there are a few good options).
A couple of specialized options might be:
Feature Section stack. Very easy to set up with a variety of options. Here’s a link:
http://onelittledesigner.com/rapidweaver-stack/feature-section/
Filter stack by Yabdab which allows you to create categories, plus search. Here’s a link:
http://yabdab.com/stacks/filter
However, there are a number of different ways to accomplish what you want. I’m simply giving some potential solutions, but there are others.
Don’t select a theme based on the art/images… art, images and color and such can be easily changed. Select a theme based on it’s function and flexibility. Another alternative to Foundry and Foundation is to get a blank theme (Stacks4stacks has one) and build your site using Stacks3 and stack partials for key parts such as header, footer, navigation and such.
I suppose I could build from scratch but bookstore/publisher/record store and craft pages are hardly greenfield. It’s odd that Themeforest is full of these but in the RW world there’s no off the rack solution.
I have no idea what “greenfield” means but there’s no oddness at all. WordPress (which is what Themeforest caters to) has a huge huge user base. It’s also, generally speaking, a less savvy user-base than RW or some other options. So the lure of template driven solutions is higher in WordPress, and the overall market size is much larger, relative to something like RapidWeaver.
… if you really want to stay with off-the-rack then, generally speaking, WordPress is going to be the better solution for the reasons you noted. But even in WordPress some of the most outstanding sites are developed by very very flexible themes (e.g. Divi) instead of off-the-rack.
It all depends on what your time is like, your background knowledge, and how unique your presentation requirements are. RapidWeaver is fantastic, and the options given will really take you a long way. But given your various personal constraints RW may not be the best solution.
Michael, if you want automatic solutions (that’s the worst kind), you can do well with WP. If you are willing to sacrifice some of your time for learning RW, you can create any kind of website you can imagine, not just bookstore/craftstore.
This is what I would advise, as well. Solutions for your kind of website are plentiful in the RW realm. You just need some creativity and faith in your abilities.
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